1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image storing apparatus, an image storing system, a terminal unit, an image storing program and an image storing method suited to storing images uploaded from a customer by using a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, it was common to record images of a background, a person, etc. on silver-halide photographs whenever there were various events and incidents. However, it often happens that the silver-halide photographs taken and developed end up stored in an album in disorder since it takes time and effort to arrange them. Thus, there was a problem that it took time to look for a necessary photograph when necessary.
In addition, the album for storing the silver-halide photographs requires a place for storing. There was also a problem, however, that the album becomes bulky as the silver-halide photographs increase, and there are so many silver-halide photographs that it becomes impossible to secure the place for storing the album.
Furthermore, there was also a problem that, in case of an emergency such as a natural disaster, negatives and the silver-halide photographs get lost or extra prints thereof cannot be made, even if so desired, since the negatives cannot be found.
On the other hand, in recent years, a network technology using computers has been developed to such an extent that a service of uploading personal image data to an image storing apparatus (image storing server) and storing it thereon. For instance, this type of image storing server sends a banner advertisement and so on to a customer having registered the image and displays it on the customer-side personal computer, and acquires advertisement distribution fees from an advertiser requesting distribution of the advertisement, and is managed thereby.
However, as there is a limit to recording capacity of the recording device of the server managing and storing the images, there are many cases where a restriction is provided, such as the image recording capacity per customer to be within 50 MB.
As the image exceeding the limit capacity cannot be newly recorded, the customer needed to provide an instruction for recording a new image after deleting the image already recorded.
There was a problem that the work of looking for the image to be deleted and deleting it from the image storing server is very troublesome for the customer and there is a possibility that the customer may mistakenly delete the image not to be deleted. In addition, from the viewpoint of managing and arranging personal images, arrangement is not easy if there are a large number of images stored on the server.